332 [Assembly 



grateful to a susceptible mind, than those wonders and treasures of 

 Nature, proving the grandeur and the goodness of God? The la- 

 borious cultivator, in the midst of his numerous family, passes serene 

 and happy days, unknown to those who are ambitious to locate them- 

 selves in cities, where life is a chaos of agitation and bitterness. 

 The Brazilian farmer ought to devote himself to it with constancy 

 and fervor; he is in the midst of immence riches, surrounding him 

 on every side; he is on a virgin soil of vast fertility, and yet poor 

 and wretched are the efforts made generally to avail themselves of 

 these peculiar advantages. Civilized countries have made an immense 

 progress, the rich and the learned have already become zealous to 

 dedicate themselves to Agriculture, the first of arts. Fine Schools 

 have been founded, in which the theory and practice of Agriculture 

 are taught. Scientific societies are occupied with the subject and 

 are encouraging and protecting it, giving premiums to inventors of 

 new processes and to such as are ahead in Agricultural labors." 



INSTRUCTION IN SCIENTIFIC AS WELL AS PRACTICAL 

 AGRICULTURE. 



History teaches us that in all the modern nations which were form- 

 ed out of the dismemberment of the Roman Expire, little care was 

 taken of Agriculture, until about the middle of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury. In all that long space of time we meet with no institutions 

 devoted to Rural Economy, or to any of the ways and means indis- 

 pensable to its progress — neither roads, canals, machines or any 

 means of transportation adapted to the benefit of the laborer in the 

 soil, its culture, preservation of its fruits, rural architecture, stock, 

 or any useful animals. 



War, which isolated states and natiqns, is one of the causes of the 

 vast injury to agriculture in our modern ages. 



Peter the Great, of Russia, visited Europe to learn, and with a 

 view to teach the civilized arts. He established systems for naval 

 architecture, &c., but he never concerned himself with the examina- 

 tion or the teaching of the Art of Agriculture, which is, was, and 

 ever will be, the primary, indispensable art to the prosperity of states 

 and nations. 



In France, the Abbe Desfontaines, in 1740, translated the Georgics 

 of Virgil, and complained of the difficulties he experienced in ex- 



